We’d be walking along some side road in Abu Dhabi hunting for ‘sale’ when suddenly Dad would disappear. We’d look around and see him mimicking walking, but not really moving at all, outside a Rivoli or Al Fardan or Al Futtaim gawking at an Omega or a Patek or a Kolber of some kind.

Over the years he did develop a small collection of watches with one or two expensive ones in them that he, I daresay, nurtured like children. After a while he infected a bunch of co-workers with the watch bug. And then every few months they’d all buy and sell watches to each other and feel quite posh.

I hated it.

But that kind of thing does leave residual tendencies.

And now I write about watches for the newspaper. And I bloody can’t get enough of the thing.

I can’t afford any of them. But, as you will see, just looking at them is a balm for the soul.

Hope you enjoy our second watch special (below) and the first in what will be a periodic series of MintWatch specials. This one is on the SIHH fair that happened in January. There should be at least two more this year.

Sometimes your parents make complete sense retrospectively.

This came in the email day before yesterday. Harish, as you can see, has mega-tons more experience than I do. And also runs a big company. So you should probably listen to him.

***

Further advice to the MBA Class of 2011

Dear Mr. Vadukut, and MBA students navigating placement season -

Your “Cubiclenama” of last week, containing advice for the graduating MBA class passing through the madness of placement season, made for inspiring reading. There is a strong case for making it compulsory reading at all business schools. I must clarify that I am from a very ancient MBA Class of 1987, but some of your sage advice is relevant to all MBA students and alumni, however young or bald they may be. I have indeed begun balding, but am yet to finally conclude whether this is on account of a quarter century spent in corporate cubicles, or a sign of true wisdom that comes from reading various pieces of excellent advice such as yours.

I agree with all the advice you have proferred to the new MBA batch, except your recommendation that they should forget Pink Floyd. This is simply because it is never possible to forget Pink Floyd, despite the fact that we first heard many of their songs in the midst of alcohol fuelled stupor or even worse. Hence, you are asking for the impossible. In any case I must point out that it is quite appropriate to sing their signature number “We don’t need no education” when we finally leave the portals of business school, which is possibly the last educational portal most of us will ever pass through. Many of us will say a very loud Hallelujah to that.

Now, there is further sound advice I would like to share with the MBA class of 2011 as they step into placement season, which builds on what you have told them. To begin with, you must not merely answer questions from the august panel of interviewers. Many of us who are part of interview panels these days also like to be questioned, since we get questioned all the time in our offices anyway. A day without questions is like a dancefloor without music, or Elizabeth Taylor without a husband. So ask your interviewers a few simple questions, such as :

“Are you really happy at your job, Sir ? And what makes you so ecstatic at work, if I may ask ?”

“Do you have really beautiful women in your Organisation ? I mean, even rough approximations of Katrina or Angelina ? Do you encourage dates, Sir, either blind or visually vivid ones, with colleagues ? And a last question, Sir, given the high costs of dining out, do you fund these dates ?”

“What is the best and worst thing that has happened to habitual latecomers in your fine Organisation ?”

You can gradually progress to more complex and interesting questions, such as –

“Sir, can you tell me how you segment consumers in your industry ?” (rest assured, questions on consumer segmentation can never be answered correctly)

“Sir, how can smokers light up in your Company, without breaking the law ?” (from my years of experience, atleast one member of the interview panel will be a smoker, and hence likely to be an implicit breaker of the law. You will therefore never get a honest reply.)

“Sir, do you permit the wearing of bermudas in your office ?”

Now, this last question may appear unusual, but it is a very important investigation to make. Reliable dipstick research has shown that offices which permit Bermudas are generally happy-go-lucky places which you will enjoy forever. If they permit quick tots of Jamaican rum, a delightful liquid close enough in origin to Bermuda, they will be even better. But if an Organisation says No to a Bermuda or a Jamaica, be doubly cautious about accepting an offer from them, because you may end up in a stuffy office which has never ever heard of Dilbert or Vadukut. Sadly, such places exist.

You must also enquire from the interview panel whether the Company parties often, and if so where do they go to let their hair (or what is left of it, in some of our cases) down. If the initial response to this question is positive, go ahead and offer to organize a party that same evening in your dorm. Here is a valuable insight. Most interviewers crave to get back to their campus lives, and there is nothing like a rocking party to soften them up completely. You can play Pink Floyd, mix drinks liberally, and provide colourful bermudas to the interviewers as well. The Chairman of your Placement Committee should be kept away from these happy events, and use good masks all around since these days photographs and leaks appear liberally on the internet, even if Julian Assange is in some sort of custody.

Masks are good advice, actually. Use masks during the interview. Mask everything interesting or illegal you have done on campus. Mask your mathematics scores, if you can, or attribute the dismal performances to the flu you repeatedly suffered during exams. Falling ill is the most natural thing that can happen in business schools, and is sound preparation for your later life in an Organisation.

But let me cut to the only serious point I really want to make, which is the direct opposite of masks. Unmask your passion at the interview, and say what you really want from your career. Tell the interviewers what excites you, what you want to really do in your life. Speak spontaneously. Stand up and speak, if you wish. Loosen your tie, and roll up your sleeves, even if this is considered heresy. Nothing will show you in better light than speaking about what really moves you, and how. Show them that there is fire in your belly, and that it burns brightly. All good interview panels look for the spark within you, but you have to unmask it first.

Here’s hoping you land a job of your dreams !

Harish Bhat

(Harish Bhat is Chief Operating Officer – Watches, Titan Industries Limited. These are strictly personal views, and are quite likely to be disowned by both his Organisation and Alma Mater.)

Unfortunately the version you read in the paper was the bastard child of two versions of the piece: the first one I had written before the missus had a chance to quality control, and the final one after. But something got lost in email transmission. So not everything is in the right place. For instance there shouldn’t be two references to shaving. And there are some lines missing, which jar.

This is what the final version should have read like.

P.S. Now I know you’re thinking that this is a complete cop-out and I am merely doing this to update the blog without actually putting in any effort into writing an original post. You are thinking very correctly.

P.P.S. I might start an email newsletter.

P.P.P.S. I want to drop everything and write a crime novel.

***

Ladies and gentleman of the MBA class of 2011,

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, a good USB memory stick would be it. The long term benefits of a USB stick has been proved by the number of times people lose laptops, or are suddenly asked to submit resumes on a plane or at a conference. The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering work experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy your last few days in business school. Chances are that you’ve already cynically dismissed the whole bloody place. But trust me, in 5 years you’ll attend an alumni reunion and realize that business school was perhaps the last place you were both truly intellectually challenged and emotionally excited. Both those things will happen again. But rarely together.

You are not as smart, or stupid, as you think.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to make investments based on research reports that will, one day, be written by that same clueless idiot sitting next to you in the canteen right now. The real troubles in your life will never be solved by a presentation or spreadsheet, and will always involve other people. And people are unpredictable sons of bitches.

Spend a little time everyday doing nothing.

Listen.

Don’t expect organizations to be as committed to you as you are to them. Organizations don’t work that way. If you do find one that is as committed, never leave.

Jog. (Or walk briskly, or cycle, or do yoga.)

Don’t judge yourself by how much money you make. Someone you know is always making more than you. (And no good comes from knowing who this is.)

Record all the feedback you ever get in your career. Especially the inaccurate, pointless, biased and vague bits that drove you nuts. This will help you when you eventually give feedback to somebody yourself.

Keep a copy of all your old resumes. When you are struck by bouts of existential crisis, flip through them in chronological order. Do the same with resignation letters.

Decide.

Not a lot of people are ‘meant’ to do something or the other. They just say that to sell bad books. Salman Rushdie might make an excellent, and content, supply chain management consultant. Who knows? You will find various amounts of meaning and satisfaction in various things. Choose your compromises wisely.

You’ll like the job a little better if you like the dress code.

Take chances when you’re young, single and don’t have loans to repay. You’ll take larger chances. Large chances are more fun than small ones.

Be nice to people for the heck of it.

Maybe you’ll retire when you’re 45, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll get an Awesome Alumnus Award, maybe you won’t, maybe you will marry your school sweetheart, maybe you won’t. Whatever happens, do not forget those probability lessons they taught you in school. Things tend to even out.

Dance. But keep it classy.

Avoid reading business books. However feel free to write them.

Travel light.

You will most certainly face difficult choices. In most cases it helps to think of what choice maximizes gain, instead of agonizing over what minimizes loss.

Invest in a good suit, pair of shoes and get a shave. Thanks to society’s shallowness, your return on investment will be considerable.

Calm down.

Let people give you advice. Develop the art of looking interested even if you are not. Pay attention to advice from people who have a stake in your happiness, and not a stake in your success.

Please stop listening to Pink Floyd.

But forget everything else. Quickly go buy that USB stick.

Best of luck.

***

If you have questions, thoughts, musings and such like leave a comment. Discussing things might further help a lot more people.

Not even a full glance, just a tiny sliver of a glance. A glancelet, if you will. But it contains multitudes.

Oh yes he did. Image via Wikipedia

In fact if you are a resident of Mumbai you are already aware of one jolly good way of doing this. Of conveying messages across long distances without noise or electronics. Surely you’ve noticed that air-kiss-noise thing that, at least in my case, makes my skin crawl. (Also I can’t do it properly. It makes my face itchy.) I think I first noticed this air-kiss-messaging-service early on in my tenure in Mumbai. I was at Dadar station having a nimbu pani, waiting for my train. I had just paid the fellow in some large-ish denomination note when my train came.

Absentmindedly I ran towards the train. Which is when I heard this horrible, piercing, squeaky noise from behind me.

I turned around to look and you wouldn’t believe it. Exactly. Whining athletes from New Zealand! And Wales!

Oh ha ha. CWG comedy. For contemporary relevance. Just like that.

No. In fact it was the man minding the juice stand. I had forgotten to pick up my change.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Dadar Station. It is a busy establishment. Yet somehow I knew that the juice man was kiss-whistling exactly at me. The hideous noise drilled through the thronging masses, as if with turn-by-turn navigation, and drilled into my head. Somehow I knew he was calling me.

Only one head turned around. Mine.

I ran back, picked up my change, thanked the man profusely, before jogging back to my train. Just as it seemed that I was going to find nothing more than a tiny, perilous little foothold on the very edge of the doorway, a resilient, hardy Mumbai hand reached out of the crowd and–tears come to my eyes when I think of the city’s unbelievable warmth and sense of community–reached into my nostril and ejected me from the train.

Tip: To make a kiss-whistle pout vigorously with your lips. Make a tight almost-shut ‘O’ shape. And then suck air in through the tiny gap between your lips. If done correctly it should make a noise like old banians being ripped for kitchen use. And the kiss-whistler should be left feeling like one is about to commit a sex crime.

But the point I making is that there are numerous ways of communicating without words. For instance take the case of the missus. I will now list just a few of the numerous wordless transmissions she achieves using merely a combination of look, grimace, weighed pause and small kitchen utensil. Ha. No no I am kidding. No kitchen utensils on weekdays.

A brief, selected list:

1. The ‘I don’t care if blind Trappist monks made it by distilling their own sweat, and it costs hajaar. It is still beer. Terms of engagement shall be the same as Tuborg or Haywards 2000. Have two. Or less. Or whatever. You are a grown man. Have one.‘ look.

2. The ‘Jaunty beach shirts are so fun and jolly and really make fat people look cool. I completely this look for other fat people.‘ look.

3. The ‘This tremendous excitement you see on my face about this potential  Twenty20+MatrixTrilogy+KFC party being planned by these friends at our place next weekend is utterly fake. Be a man and back out now. Or at least get it moved to someone else’s place.‘ look.

4. The ‘No. Use your PS2 properly and exhaustively first. At least finish God Of War II at some sort of respectable difficulty level. Instead you may chat with the saleswoman for a bit.’ look.

And finally 5. The ‘What? She is thinner? Is that it? Should I straighten my hair too? STOP TALKING TO THE SALESWOMAN YOU OBJECTIFYING LETCH!‘ look.

There are a plethora of other looks of course, meant for use in every situation from family office parties, overlong blogger meets, to new BlackBerry launches, and even a series of distinct and impactful pregnant pauses meant for mobile phone use. (Can’t wait for 3G and video calls when we can go back to looking and pausing instead of just pausing.)

One of the cool things about this is that wives and girl friends think that nobody else in the room notices these looks. In my experience EVERYONE, including the expat using the wifi on the table next, notices the look. Subsequently everyone else there lets loose a flurry of rapid inter-personal silent despatches. Perhaps an illustration will help.

Let us assume there are three couples in a room. Let us call them A, B and F. For ease we assume all three are men-woman couples, and individuals shall be referred to as Husband-A, Wife-A, Husband-B and so on. Let us assume that Husband-A has made an observation that his wife does not approve of. Such as:

“I’d totally apply Zandu Balm on her if you know what I mean!!?”

The following subsequent exchanges are all unspoken:

Wife-A to Husband-A: What the… How cheap… I am disgusted. But I have to laugh now with everyone else… Chi chi chi.

Husband-B to Husband-F: Did you see that look? BURN!!!

Husband-F to Husband-B: I swear.

Wife -B to Wife-F: Thank god we’re not married to the type no?

Wife-F to Wife-B: I swear.

Wife-B to Husband-B: It is not that funny.

Wife-F to Husband-F: It is not that funny.

Husband-F to Wife-F: Sorry babe. Only because Husband-B laughed.

Husband-B to Wife-B: Sorry babe. But Husband-F laughed first.

Husband-A to himself: How quickly that moment has passed…

Husband-B and Husband-F to themselves: Zandu balm. Malaika. Mmm…

Uff. The politics I tell you.

And now, I have realized suddenly today, the missus has developed a brand new, high-impact, high-velocity look.

It happened like this. I was sitting this morning reading the papers and flipping through the news channels enjoying all the excitement around the Commonwealth Games and Talking Newspaper Advertisement developments. (Note to Volkswagen people: Next time your recording could start with the kiss-whistle. Super customer connect.)

Suddenly something most most jovial occurred to me.

“Darling!,” I said to Kaaliya, “what if there was a special Commonwealth Games campaign in the Times of India?”

“Have you brushed your teeth yet?” she responded shrewdly.

“So you open the paper and suddenly the AR Rahman theme begins to play out of the newspaper… and then as you are astonished by this development, a mosquito flies out of the paper, bites you and then you get Dengue. Ayyo classic no?”

A furrow appeared on her forehead. Her brows approached each other tentatively. One corner of her mouth smiled. The other frowned. And then she nodded. No. Don’t.

It was a new look. It was her shiny new: ’Oh god. You really, really want to tweet that wisecrack so badly right now don’t you? And then madly check for retweets no?’ look.

And she was right.

So I didn’t.

I wanted to inform all of you of this significant development in my marriage. These new looks don’t happen often. Therefore I wanted to save this development for posterity.

Or should I say pause-terity. Classic!

Ok. It appears I am not allowed to tweet that either.

I am back. Again.

Ahem. Hello there. Welcome back.

As you may be aware this blog was away for three months doing authorly things like launching, reading, interviewing, posing for pictures, reading good reviews, reading bad reviews, crying ourselves to sleep and so on. And amidst all the celebrity-ing, Pranab Mukherjee presented a Union Budget. The union budget is pretty much the highlight of the annual calendar for the business journalism business. (Whatay play on words.) Which means the Union Budget is one of those “do anything as long as you are doing something” periods in the office. And boy did we do things. Many, many things.

Of course today no one remembers anything Minister Mukherjee said or announced during the budget.

(When I say no one, I am NOT referring to professional and hobbyist economists. Those guys are still going at it with shouts of “Good golly there is fiscal widening happening here!” or perhaps “I am perturbed by the supply-side inflationary tendencies of the moneterary policy implications of this policy shift…”.

Economists. Oh yeah. Those guys are fun.)

But for the rest of us the Union Budget was the Rashomon to the Rail Budget’s Wrestlemania XII.

FYI: That’s the one in which Shawn Micheals beat Bret Hart in the first ever WWF Iron Man Match.

PFA budget. @shashitharoor Pls. RT.

Mukherjee needs to do something about the public recall of the budget. How can he get people to talk about his budget for years and years after he presents it? How can he get coverage on every channel from CNBC to Dwarka Entertainment Network?

Exactly. Get Shashi Tharoor to live tweet the budget. Preferebly a day in advance.

So now that all such matters are behind us and in the past, I can perhaps share some of the more memorable moments from the last many months of hawking Dork to all and sundry.

First of all there was the wonderful experience of seeing Dork at the Full Circle Bookstore during the Jaipur Literary Festival. Which is where we cracked open the first ever cardboard box full of copies fresh from the press. In complete, reseplendent, uber-literary lemon-rice-yellow glory. Aayush Soni and Samit Basu were amongst the first buyers to ever pay for the book and indirectly earn me Rs.15.92 per copy. (Yes. Name-dropping.)

Next morning:

Sidin: “Aayush Aayush Aayush, have you read it, have you read it, have you read it, did you like it, did you like it, did you like it…”
Aayush: “I started reading it. And then I fell asleep.”

My lips said “That’s ok, Jaipur can be pretty exhausting Aayush. Tell me when you finish.”

But my mind said “Sidin stealthily approach one of those Festival khullar chai-wallahs. Steal his huge bronze tea drum. Then batter Aayush to death with drum. Write literary book about experience and block calendar for Jaipur 2011 invitation. Working Title: A Humpty Drum Tea Murder.”

Thankfully the response I got from the venerable Samit Basu was drastically different.

Sidin: “Samit Samit Samit, have you read it, have you read it, have you read it, did you like it, did you like it, did you like it…”
Samit: “I started reading it. And then I fell asleep.”

As you can see, the initial market response for the book was less than stupendous.

But things went up from there. We were 13,000 copies down some three weeks ago. And Dork continues to sell.

That was not the only Dork-highlight involving the Mulleted Basu.

Oh yeah.

The Mumbai launch had Samit and Gul Panag launching Dork, and me trying to gurgle up complete, gibberish-free sentences while talking to Gul Panag. During the un-gift-wrapping of the book, Samit ceremoniously pulled on the pink ribbon, and then let the book fall to the floor. There was an audible gasp from the crowd… who saw the book fall and then collectively internalized the spectacular dress Gul was wearing.

But then things went well after that and the Mumbai launch, much like the Delhi launch with Jai Arjun Singh, comprised laughter, banter and reasonable sales. The flightless ones are pleased. And so am I.

Book launch season also means many interviews and some photo shoots.

I will be honest with you here. After a point, there is a tendency to lapse into auto-pilot during interviews. Mind you, it’s not that interviewers don’t try. It’s just after a point, it is well nigh impossible to be asked an un-asked question. So there is an element of going through the motions.

Except, that is, when the interview stands apart. For bizarre reasons.

Like the guy who was paranoid that I would eat something expensive at the restaurant we met in, and make him pay the bill. When I ordered the Chicken Kathi Roll and Diet Coke, the blood drained from his face:

Sidin: “…so no, I dont think of any of the characters have been directly inspired from…”
Dude: “Excuse me…”
Sidin: “Eh? Yes.”
Dude: “I would like to tell you that I am not carrying any money in my wallet.”
Sidin: “Ok… Umm… Ok… No problem…”

And then moments after I completed the food and asked for the bill with not a hint of hesitation:

Sidin: “…so many inspirations. Books, movies, TV shows. Especially a lot of British…”
Dude: “Thank you so much for your time. I will go now.”
Sidin: “…”
Dude: *poof*

I don’t need to tell you that only the worst possible pictures from photo shoots finally make it to print. Or that around a quarter of my interviewers made desperate attempts to get me to bitch about Chetan Bhagat.

Sea Harrier doing its thing.

But then now, when I am thoroughly over the emotional roller-coaster of launches and reviews and interviews, I sit back and wonder. About the questions I’ve never been asked yet. Including those about books. And me. And the Harrier Jump Jet capable of V/STOL.

(I might cover ground I’ve blogged about before. Or not. I don’t remember any more. Afteryouth.)

For instance when did I really begin to read? As in read even when it wasn’t mandated by the CBSE or ambitious “At least read the newspaper for ten minutes, instead of watching Different Strokes on TV no?!” parents.

It all began sometime around 1985. I remember the incident clearly, if not the date, because there was a fire. A tiny little fire, confined to one corner of one room of one apartment. But a fire nonetheless. One that needed fire fighting. How exciting for a six year old no?

The fire broke out in the mostly empty flat next door, occupied by a Malayali family a day or so away from abandoning Abu Dhabi and moving back to India. (In the 80s. Who left the Gulf in the 80s?? Maybe only them.) They’d already started emptying the flat, room by room, and shifting everything into a cargo container. All that remained was one room which had some old clothes, old toys, kitchen utensils and such things that had no functional utility, would be a waste to ship, but were of borderline sentimental value.

And books. A closet in a corner had a man-sized stack of books. Most of them were damaged with covers missing and broken bindings. Others were useless ones like out-of-syllabus textbooks, and orphan volumes of old encyclopedias.

The fire had already begun to leap at the stack of books when mom and I started a bucket chain relaying water to fight it. (The brain works in such weird ways. I recall orange and red buckets, and mom running out of our front door, around the stair well and into the neighbour’s house. In her petticoat/nightie.)

As reward for my valiant fire-fighting, and in order to save on shipping costs, I was allowed to keep a few books from the stack. Mom, ever proud and independent, allowed me to pick up only one. I took the cover-less, slightly browned single-volume encyclopedia with the big colourful pictures in it.

For many years after the book had a strong smell of char and smoke. And then it began to pick up smells from my own cupboard: old blankets, pencil shavings and fountain pen ink. Finally it made up its mind and decided to smell comfortingly of home.

Mohenjo-daro Mr. T.

At first I liked only the pictures in it. Then I began reading the captions. Statue from Mohenjo-Daro. Man building a roof. Spectrum of colours. Isaac Newton. How a nuclear reactor works: in three steps.

And then, slowly, I began to read the paragraphs.

Soon it got obsessive. I’d lie belly down on the floor and read it always. Mom, and to a lesser extent dad, were staunch believers in the fact that 100% school attendance, well eaten meals and plenty of sleep in the afternoon were essential for growing children. (And indeed much physical widening happened in the years hence.)

So I would secretly slip the book under the bed, and when everyone else fell asleep, I’d roll over to the edge, pull the book out and read it. Sometimes with one slyly open eye.

Thus it began. With non-fiction mostly.

We never had too much money for years, and I normally got my books as a post-examination reward:

More than 5 A+ grades = Hundred dirhams for books and Atari cartridge.
3 to 5 A+ grades = Atari cartridge.
Less than 3 A+ grades = Name removal from ration card, visa cancellation, legal separation from family and “go and become a coconut tree climber or something…”

I got a lot of A+ grades. The first time I won a 100 dhirhams Vadukut gift voucher, I spent it all on one of those “Monster Book Of How Things Work” type publications. (It was the book Dad liked best from my shortlist.)

This was a stupendous achievement in publishing. Spectacular pictures, copious data, tremendously fun narration. It was here that I first read about:

1. Ayer’s Rock
2. D-Day and Normandy landings and therefore,
3. The Second World War
4. The Harrier Jump Jet with vertical/short take-off and landing.

The book had a wonderful hand-painted map of the beaches at Normany with hundreds of little markers and flags. And then there were comparative illustrations of American and German soldiers. Every few sections there’d be an illustrated three or four-page graphic story or biography. Gordon of Khartoum. Florence Nightingale. Famous mountaineering tragedies. Pele. And so on.

D dei!

That book kick-started a life long passion for World War II. At least 25% of all the books I have bought have something to do with the war. (And history in general.) Indeed it wasn’t till years later, maybe when it came up in school, that I began wondering about the first world war. (Between you and me, I’m working on a ambitious-ish World War II book idea. Proposal due early 2012. Fingers crossed. And of course I need to do that PhD in history.)

Forays into fiction are owed to a pro-active school library, the inevitable Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew clubs and excellent children magazines published by local Abu Dhabi newspapers. And, perhaps most importantly, a trip to a discount supermarket once that ended in a big bag of cut price children’s versions of classics: Moby Dick, The Last Of The Mohicans, Man In The Iron Mask etc.

It must have taken at least 5 years for me to work through that shopping trip. To this day I find it harder to cope with fiction. A stack of begged/borrowed/bought New Yorker magazines in a cupboard here in Dwarka. And not one page of fiction even touched.

Salaried employment, author discount, review copies and online bookstores now ensure that I don’t need to get grades or top exams to get books. I can always buy them when I want to. Provided the missus lets me.

But of course you don’t care for all this do you? Of course not. Or someone would ask me all this in an interview.

Sigh.

Have a good weekend. I have weeks of columns and a couple of longer pieces to complete. And yes, book reading trips to Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune.

And we are merely 800 words in to Dork 2. Manuscript due June.

Take care. Give kids books. (GiveIndia can help with that. Click below.)

P.S. One of the Pastramis became a father in December. The mother is healthy. The child is very healthy and already shows a propensity for bond market trading.

Photo of Mumbai launch from Raven_b’s superb Flickr stream. I am most grateful. See more here.

Every couple of weeks Pastrami, the missus, a few other mutual friends and yours truly get together to, by and large, make fun of each other. Take each other’s trip. Now you might be forgiven for thinking that this sort of routine gets lame after a while. How much fun can you poke at the same people fortnight after fortnight right? Right?

Wrong.

Pastrami and I once spent an entire overnight train journey making fun of a particular female friend’s nose. Five, maybe six hours of purely nose-based humour.

It was quite a remarkable nose of course. Long, pointed and with a mid-stream course correction that made it hook downwards, and slightly to the left hawkishly before ending in a well-tapered, not at all chunky point. It was not a freakish nose. Some people could have pulled it off. Alas our friend was not one of those. And when extreme boredom struck Pastrami and me minutes after leaving Aurangabad station, we quickly converged on the nose for amusement:

“So does it echo a little bit when you sneeze?”

“Can you touch your tongue with the tip of your nose?”

And the classic:

“How can you possibly head-butt anything at all?”

Alas this particular evening Pastrami had other things to talk about. Which, if I had known about, I would have made up some random excuse, something marriage related perhaps, to avoid meeting him.

Let me explain.

As soon as we settled into one of the tables in the corner at the Costa(lot for) Coffee at Connaught Place, Pastrami squirmed a little uncomfortably in his chair, as men do in such circumstances. And then he said: “Sidin. I have fallen in love. I have asked her to marry me.”

I kept scrolling through Twitter updates on Blackberry hoping that the moment would pass and Pastrami would move on to something else. But he did not. He repeated: “Dude! I am in love. I have asked this girl to marry me! Dude. Listen!”

And so I had to.

Now in most cases when a close friend falls in love and decides to propose to someone, this is a cause of great joy for the entire friends circle. And naturally so. Aren’t we all glad to see a friend find that someone special to spend the rest of his or her life with in love and affection, till some form of gaming console or broadband connection do them apart?

Not exactly. In reality there are several base, negative and downright selfish reasons why we are glad to see a friend hook up with someone.

For instance married men love to see single male friends hook up because there are really only so many times you can laugh off other people’s bachelor exploits before slowly crying yourself to sleep on your side of the double bed. Single men also love to see other single men hook up because, thanks to the weird probabilities that govern male life, your friend is going to date some smoking-hot Anjana Sukhani look alike. A babe who is SO out of your league that she is in some completely other sport if you know what I mean. (Anjana will then fool around with you because you are harmless and call her “bhabhi” all the time, when your actual mental train of thought is more along the lines of “slutty nurse”.)

I am not one to hypothesize how women’s minds work. But when a girl decides to hook up with a guy, I believe her female friends’ mental flowchart is as follows:

1. Wow she is going out with someone!
2. The bastard better agree to marry her…
3. Because she would look so AWESOME on her wedding day (leading to the most important and critical next thought…)
4. AND THEN I CAN GET MEHNDI DONE!!! WOO HOO!!!

But in Pastrami’s case things are not so. When Pastrami tells me he is in love, my train of thought is along the lines of:

Oh. Shit.

This is because, for all the years I have known gentle, sensitive, prone-to-auto-accident Pastrami he always, without fail or exception, falls for the MOST CRAZY ASS WOMEN in the world.

I do not jest. These women are freaking night-mare inducing, restraining order generating insane. Stark raving. And that is saying something for that gender.

For instance there was the one that would always drop in, to say hi and possibly make out a little, by barging into his room without warning Kramer-like. Initially this was a cute quirk that temporarily suspended Pastrami’s “I will be naked when I am alone” habit. Later we discovered it was because she wanted to know if he was ever with any other women in person or on the phone.

Then there was the one that, in her spare time, wrote jolly comic verse about people who wanted to commit suicide.

And who can forget that crazy girl from Goa who’d break up one day, drop in for the night the next, then break up again. And then sex chat with him on Google Talk only to break up again and then make up again and then sex chat again all in the space of a brief afternoon. She left poor Pastrami a mess of mixed messages and hair-trigger emotions for weeks. I’d ask him if he wanted to do coffee and he’d ask, reflexively, if it was because he’d ”screwed up something again without knowing.”

And in each of these cases Pastrami wanted to marry them immediately and have children and a house in the hills. Alas it would be left to his friends to pick up the pieces and console poor Pastrami and nurse him back to sanity. Largely by making jokes about unrequited love around him till his sorrow was spent and he laughed along.

So when he sits in a cafe and breaks the news that he is in love yet again, ideal responses would be to talk him out of it, hit him over the head with that humongous cup at Costa and hope he develops retrograde amnesia, or stab yourself in the throat with that ridiculous cheese twisty thing they serve there and then die a slow death. Anything but the crazy woman you’d have to handle for him.

Alas I was just in the middle of Retweeting something on the Berry and, before I could pick up an ornamental polished marble ball from the potted plant, Pastrami blurted it all out.

The young lass was well-known to all of us having been a year junior to us in college. She was of sound mind and had a penchant for some emotional poetry. And a looker to boot. So prima facie there was nothing to suggest a mental imbalance other than the usual womanly foibles. (Stuff like “You just like Yoda because he talks funny.”)

And then Pastrami began to speak of how they’d been in touch for a long time over email and chat—the lass works abroad. And how after a recent visit by her to Delhi he’d decided that they were meant to be together forever:

P: “Sidin, she came all the way to Delhi just to meet me. For a few hours. From XXXXX!”
S: “No shit. Did she say that? Did she say she came JUST to see you?”
P: “Well not in as many words. But she has no other friends. No other family. Only me. ONLY ME! DON’T YOU SEE! IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING!”
S: “Are you’re sure she did absolutely nothing else at all in Delhi?”
P: “There was this friend’s wedding. But otherwise every minute of her day was Pastrami-time!”
S: “Oh shit.” (Reaches for cheese twisty.)

And if that wasn’t weird enough Pastrami then narrated, in great unnecessary detail, about all the conversations that they had and all the subsequent insights into her personality.

For instance he was going to propose to her in Paris (The city. Ha!). Because that’s the place she’d got on her “Which is your favourite city in the world?” quiz on Facebook. Also he had discovered that her favourite poem in the entire world was Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning. So he’d asked for her hand in go-out-ship by quoting the “Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be.” lines from that poem.

Pastrami also said that the few moments they’d spent together in her hotel room was heavy with sentiment and emotion. They had hugged at some point and according to Pastrami it felt “just right”. And even the woman said that she “loved the hug”.

So far things seemed normal. Apart from a penchant for poems that are over 190 lines long, our lass seemed largely harmless. And then, just when I thought he’d finally found a sane woman, Pastrami said:

“Just yesterday she called me at 4 in the morning and asked me to write a poem for her on the spot. It was magical Sidin. This despite the fact that she is yet to come to a decision whether she loves me.”

Completely unlike the CBI, I was stunned by this new evidence. What? She did not love him yet?  She was still making up her mind? Extempore poetry at 4 AM? WTF?

Apparently, Pastrami explained, our girl was still coming to terms with the fact that someone was in love with her. Apparently she did not know if she was ready to reciprocate. She was still not getting “goosebumps” when she thought about him. Also it seems she was sill trying to find out what the “concept of love” really meant to her.

Pastrami asked me if I got goosebumps when I thought about the missus. Because the missus was sitting with us at the time, I told him that in many parts of my body the skin was permanently goose-bumped, like a durian, from intense affection. I then asked Pastrami how HE knew that he was in love. He said that the magical moment had been when he had escorted her to Delhi airport.

They’d reached well in advance of her flight and he’d taken her to that shady south Indian restaurant near the terminal for a coffee. After snacking and chatting, presumably about weird poetry, they got up to leave. Both of them approached the cash counter and she’d insisted she’d pay. Suddenly her mind went blank calculating her bill, she fumbled for her wallet and, according to Pastrami, “she just looked so darned adorably silly fumbling with a simple bill.” Pastrami immediately swooped and picked up the tab.

She said that her brain was suited more for poetry than mathematics while Pastrami’s mind was so analytical and fast. Never to let a moment like this go waste, Pastrami uttered a line that has never been used between a man and a woman in a romantic setting before:

Multi-faceted

“Darling I just love to see you doing silly things. And fumbling with math. Frankly my dear, I think my left brain is in love with your right brain…”

She was left speechless. Also all of us and one passing-by Costa waiter.

It was clear that Pastrami was quite pleased with his monumental pick-up line. He sat back in his chair at Costa and smiled smugly. He asked me what I thought. I told him that it was a great line. And then made a joke about how Pastrami and Poetry Babe had at least one good brain between the both of them.

The rest of the night all of us just sat and mostly made fun of Pastrami’s brain. Or the left half in any case.

As for their love story it progresses gradually. The lass is still waiting for her moment of epiphany when she suddenly gets goosebumps and realizes her passionate love for good old Pastrami. Pastrami spends most of his nights, pen in hand, ready to create magnificent poetry for her at a moment’s notice. This is what he wrote that day at 4 in the morning:

To understand a love that is unrequited
Consider a candle that is, at one end, ignited.
If you respond that it’s the standard way it is conflagrated
Wait! I’m not done. Let me make it a little more complicated.
This one-side-lit candle, further, balances about a delicate axis
and, as one side wanes the other, relatively, waxes.
And this creates an imbalance which, as we know, Nature abhors.
But what is to be done when one party is indifferent while the other adores?

And the only thing keeping this world from going completely crazy
is that while A loves B, B loves C all the way through till Y loves Z.
Though the As, Bs, Cs, all the way through till the Ys will complain
that, with one-sided love, imbalance is, only, a minor pain.
And when A speaks of B
you can clearly see
that B’s mere presence
justifies A’s existence.
But when B speaks of A
suffice to say
from how A is derided
Love is, clearly, one-sided.

Unrequited love also, it seems, makes the skin thick.
Words from B that would, earlier, have cut to the quick
no longer seem to affect A in any way.
Also rendered ineffective is any passion A might display
What A and B fail to realize
is that as each candle diminishes in size
A and B, inexorably, draw near
and where A ends and B begins becomes unclear.
And while B is resisting and A is pining
even this dark cloud has a silver lining.

Let the Lovers and the Loved always recall
that ‘tis but one wick that connects us all.

Yes. Pastrami is really, really in love.

Crap.

Instead, it is a brief retelling of something that happened a few days ago to the missus. An event that only serves to reinforce the slow but steady sliding of the author and close associates deeper down the slope of Afteryouth.

Afteryouth, regulars will know, is that period between graduating from a Master’s program and becoming 30 when one’s youth ebbs away slowly, when kids playing at Five Gardens kicks a football into the road and ask “uncle” to get it back for them, and when one watches contemporary TV (except House MD) and realizes all over again the timeless greatness of Chandler Bing and Niles Crane.

And when one continues to recommend “Crimson Tide” and “The Rock” as great timepass movies to friends at the office. (Also one is actually quite bothered by inflation and potential US depression but one tries to not talk about it loudly.)

And by one…I mean me.

So the missus is out with people from her office for a do at a club called Indus in South Mumbai. The night progresses well. The missus is not one for too many alcoholic drinks. But she does not mind the odd vodka lemon shot or caipiroshka. Also the misses likes to shake that leg a little if there is an enthu crowd she can dissappear into.

The night progresses peacefully. But the music simply does not rise to the occassion. So the missus makes a trip to the DJ in the corner, a young tshirt and cap clad boy who, no doubt, had a piercing somewhere below his waist by the look of those double sideburns.

“Could you play some Punjabi please?” missus inquired gently. The DJ shrugged and said ok, as is the way of all DJs except that old sweet fellow at Sports Bar at Phoenix Mills.

“What do you want to listen to?”

There are many Punjabi numbers very close to the missus and your truly’s hearts: Punjabi 5-0, Backstabber, Chandigarh Kare Ashiqui, Snap vs. Motivo, Mundian To Bach Ke, Takre and, of course, Sukhbir when he was still low budget.

But few can beat Nachna Onda Nei by Tigerstyle and Kaka Bhania. Who hadn’t heard of that eponymous number? The missus found out soon enough.

“Never heard of it! Nachna… what?”

The missus raised an eyebrow. DJ Jackass had no idea that, at best, he had another four minutes or so to live. (The missus is marginally slower than usual when wearing traditional attire due to the chunni, which creates drag when moving through air at Mach 2.)

“Nachna Onda Nei. Kaka Bhania. It’s a popular Bhangra number…”

“No idea miss. Is it from some movie? I can play Kawa Kawa if you want.”

“It’s not from a movie you fool! Khasmanu Khaanee…” She moved towards him her fingers tightening around a little paper umbrella that is a cocktail decoration for most but a weapon of mass destruction for some.

She was about to slit his throat via papercut when seventeen of her colleagues pulled her back. The DJ had the presence of mind to play Sajnaa Jee Vaari Vaari, which cooled her somewhat. Her colleagues informed her that perhaps th DJ was simply too young to remember that old classic that inspired many a young MBA to bend Ahmedabad prohibition legislation.

Later that night she came back home and told me what had happened. The anger quickly changed to contemplation and we sat in the living room feeling our youth dwindling. When I could handle it no more, I slipped in a Friends DVD.

When Chandler said “Chanberries…” in that episode with the Thanksgiving Dinner, we laughed out loud and our lives momentarily felt better. But not by much.

Addendum: I am stunned by the musical ignorance of today’s youth. (And yes, I am referring to you Ideasmith! Tut tut. No Wii/eeepc/web 2.0/twitter or some such young thing for you!)

This video will perhaps help to jog memory and shake those hips! Call all your friends, crank up speakers and crack open some beers… (Knockout is best.) Periodically shout: “Oy hoy!”

(Can’t embed the video whatever I do. Sigh.)

Saloon, mind you, not salon. There is an ‘o’ missing.

And that is all the difference between a flowery fellow making trendy conversation while he snips away and Mama, my regular scissorsmith, who seldom raises a peep out of his well creased mouth. But what Mama lacks in style and panache he makes up for in experience and consistency. He is, in fact, Sushilkumar Shinde’s haircutter of choice. Since youth. Shinde now has a fast outfield up there. So Mama has cut a lot of heads.

Irrespective of what I tell Mama to do – long, short, sideburns trimmed, clean at the back, thin on the sides – he finally gives me exactly the same cut. Time after time. There is a certain welcome comfort in that. Crisp partition on my right (your left), 2.5 cms of side burn and nearly vertical side trim.

Classic Hairdressers is quite the old setup and has a board on the wall which says: "Laundry towel and cloth Rs. 10 extra". Which means, unless requested otherwise, you get wrapped in cloth that throngs with mature virus and bacteria that once draped a young Shinde.

Yet I enjoy the familiarity, the old film magazines – Is Bobby Deol the next big thing?! – and the no nonsense approach of it all. And the fact that for the price of one of Pastrami’s trims I can get barbered for the entire duration of an elected government that does not support the nuclear deal.

Yet last fortnight, when I got my latest trim, something happened that shook me to my very core. Halfway through a cut and shave Mama suddenly lunged forward and did something that had never EVER happened in my life.

He gingerly trimmed my nose hair.

The sky fell down around me. My self esteem impacted the floor noisily. Alas! Egads!

Afteryouth had, yet again, struck a mighty blow with nary a warning. I was old enough to get my nosehair trimmed! The shame… the shame.

Every man worth this salt knows that whence the nosehair needs a quick snip the faint attachments with youth doth begin to crumble. From then it is all downhill till the ears themselves sprout locks at which point you just throw yourself in front of a Virar Fast to end the agony and carbon footprint.

Note from Wikipedia: Nasal hair should not be confused with cilia of the nasal cavity, which are the microscopic cellular strands that, unlike macroscopic nasal hair, draw mucus up toward the oropharynx via their coordinated, back-and-forth beating.

Dammit.

Now, each morning, I give the wind tunnels a quick inspection to ensure no wispy flashes. Those with experience know that nothing hurts like an inadvertently pulled out nosehair follicle. Especially in an electric shaver. As the ancients used to say: "Two from the nose is like a fist from the bush."

This morning I noticed a stray peeper and spoke out at the world in general and at the missus in particular about my woe. She threw me a terrific glance before looking away. As we cabbed to work eyes were transfixed outside the window. And even when we parted ways and she walked into her office, she said good bye without looking at me in the face.

Sigh.

Sometimes I think only Mama cares. Only he understand my problems. I completely see where Sushilkumar Shinde is coming from.

So I guess I will now sit and wait till this happens:

Sob. Sniff. Sigh. Sneeze!

Stupid hair…

I know how it is. I understand. You step out of the shower, dry yourself down in front of the mirror, (maybe flex those pecs a little?) and then slip into the bedroom in your towel to surprise the missus.

She looks at you endearingly perched on the edge of the bed. You throw her some manly poses and she coos. “You the man” she whispers huskily. Then you turn around to show off those chiseled back muscles when she screams and bolts out of the room.

Happens dudes.

So waste no time and do what a man needs to do. See pic. Buy product. Right away. Run along now.